Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

A brilliant, but undoable idea is still a stupid idea. Does your savant live in a trailer park and claim to have been a F-15 pilot?

Posted by Orville at December 19, 2006 02:50 PM

As I mention on that thread, why not create a trust fund? Those seem to have staying power and aren't dependent on the annual budget for their existence.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at December 19, 2006 02:57 PM

How about a Swiss bank account - just send up the passcode and account number. Information has the highest value/mass ratio - it is infinite !

(Of course, someone would keep a copy and spend the money before the prize got claimed...)

Posted by David Summers at December 19, 2006 03:00 PM

The key to the Swiss Bank account is an excellent idea. Let the bank retain the authorization documentation, and the issuers of the challenge would have the authority of certifying the key. Once certified, the bank would release the funds to the owner of the key.

Posted by J. Craig Beasley at December 19, 2006 03:09 PM

This problem is much more easily surmounted by having guarantees backed by multiple entities (i.e. a government and private foundation, or multiple governments, etc.). A solution similar to reinsurance would also be a relatively straightforward solution.

Neither is as fun, though. If you must stick with a valuable item, I think bearer bonds are transferable and in much higher denominations than currency. They would probably be denser than even rhodium. If you use bearer bonds from multiple governments and corporations, then you don't even need to rely on one government for the value.

Posted by Sisyphus at December 19, 2006 03:13 PM

> But are there things that have even higher dollar densities? Yes. Some
> drugs, microchips, etc. The problem is coming up with one that will hold
> its value.

Diamonds?

Or just a cashier's check. Written on a Swiss bank account, if you really want it beyond the control of the US government.

Of course, if you did that, there would be no reason to actually put the check on the Moon. It would be easier to let the bank hold it in trust, as Karl says.

Posted by Edward Wright at December 19, 2006 03:30 PM

Even with the impracticalities, as so many people rant about 'sending their tax money into space,' it's interesting to examine what it would take to *literally* do so...

Posted by Frank Glover at December 19, 2006 03:33 PM

Diamonds?

Nope. With useful molecular manufacturing, those become trivially cheap. I'd have more confidence in materials that require operations at an atomic level.

I think that the information-level approach holds the most promise, just as the only real money to be made in space consists of satellites that generate revenue via photons...

Posted by Rand Simberg at December 19, 2006 03:39 PM

What would the TV rights be worth to show someone beating NASA back to the Moon?

There is an established business model here, drawn from the rap music industry. Witness the complaint of some black rappers that "da' Man commoditizes our discontent and sells it back to us on CD" -- in other words, white record label owners get rich sell black protest songs to black people.

Okay, suppose an American business tycoon arranged for a bunch of foreign astronauts to beat NASA back to the Moon and sold the TV rights in India, Japan, Europe, China etc. . .

If a Yankee got rich selling a program to show up NASA, would that person be a Yankee Traitor or a Yankee Trader?

Posted by Bill White at December 19, 2006 03:44 PM

What would the TV rights be worth to show someone beating NASA back to the Moon?

Not enough, Bill. Give it up.

The moon will be settled and paid for by those who want to settle it. Not by those voyeurs who want to watch others settle it...

Posted by Rand Simberg at December 19, 2006 03:49 PM

Several years ago, over at the NewMars website (loosely affiliated with the Mars Society) I proposed a "First Steps" trust fund.

Allow donations to be accumulated in an interest bearing escrow account (tax free). Solicit donations world wide. When the first child is born on Mars and survives X period of time, the mother gets the money.

As time passes the escrow will grow larger and larger until eventually it is enough for someone to give it a shot.

It was inspired by Ben Franklin's gift to the Philadelphia library, with the requirement that the money remain untouched, at interest, for 200 years.

Posted by Bill White at December 19, 2006 03:53 PM

How about the rights to Star Trek or Star wars?

Seriously star trek is valued at a billion dollars,
and it would have some real harmony
making the sum be a science fiction show.

Posted by anonymous at December 19, 2006 04:23 PM

> What would the TV rights be worth to show someone beating NASA back to the Moon?

Bill, for the 100th time, that is *not* a rhetorical question. It's a question that can be easily answered with a little math.

Superbowl ads sell for about $2.5 million per minute. So, even if you could guarantee an audience as large as the Superbowl (which no one will believe) and sell 12 minutes of ads per hour, the most you could get would be $30 million for a one-hour show.

Nowhere close to the $2-billion figures you pull out of thin air.

> If a Yankee got rich selling a program to show up NASA, would that
> person be a Yankee Traitor or a Yankee Trader?

You keep asking that, but you never tell us the punchline. Does it have anything to do with the War of Northern Aggression?

Posted by Edward Wright at December 19, 2006 04:29 PM

> Several years ago, over at the NewMars website (loosely affiliated with
> the Mars Society) I proposed a "First Steps" trust fund.

Bill, have you ever invested in any of your own proposals? Or do you just propose them?

Posted by Edward Wright at December 19, 2006 04:36 PM

How about Plutonium?

Posted by Eric J at December 19, 2006 05:53 PM

Okay, here is how you sell media rights.

Fly to Bangalore, India and sit down with the owners of the leading South Asian media networks. You tell them, it would be really special if a citizen of India were the 13th person to step onto the Moon. But, doing that is expensive.

If the media executives of India can put their collective heads together and raise a few billion dollars by turning the Moon landing into the largest media event in South Asian television history then okay, we will fly a South Asian to the Moon.

Otherwise? We have a flight to Tokyo for another business meeting with Japanese media tycoons. What would South Asian people say if the Japanese step up to the plate and the 13th person on the Moon unfurls a white flag with a giant red ball in the middle?

After the offer was made to India first? Or vice versa?

America? We've been to the Moon. Been there, done that. Literally. Let's make some money selling the experience to the rest of the world.

= = =

Edward, it is not about 30 minutes of TV.

Its about the whole package. Ever watch golf? Boring as all heck. NASCAR? Hours of boredom mixed in with a few exciting moments from time to time.

You do not sell the landing. You sell the entire experience. Launch from Earth; TLI; lunar orbital capture; landing; first steps; exploring the surface; lunar ascent; return to Earth. Pre-flight training, etc. . .

Nike logos on the flight suits. Upon landing, open a Verizon phone and say "Can you hear me now?"

Put a pressurized rover on the Moon and take a road-trip. Stick a Ford logo on that rover. Or Dodge. Or Honda.

Drink Gatorade and eat Powerbars.

And it is all packaged as part of a larger narrative -- people will colonize space and THIS is how it starts. Buy the products that advertise with the luanr program and thereby you too can support space exploration and the drive to become a spacefaring species.

NASA cannot raise money this way. They are government. Private parties can.

= = =

There is no one "killer app" -- the private sector will need to mix and match revenue sources and cobble together the money needed.

Now, a one off mission would be a total waste. Instead, you need to deploy an architecture that allows follow on missions at greatly reduced cost.

Such as a reuseable LSAM and an L point transfer station.

Then go with the private astronaut corp idea. After India and Japan pay to send an astronaut and place a flag, propose that Brazil pay to send one of their scientists, then South Korea, then Portugal, then Norway, then Israel, then Canada and so on.

If you have an L point transfer station and a reuseable LSAM then one Proton and one Soyuz (or EELV equivalent) for crew and some fuel tankers is all you need to mount follow on missions.

= = =

Or we can whine about NASA. ;-)

Posted by Bill White at December 19, 2006 06:42 PM

PS -- Are any of these ideas LESS plausible than a plan to ask Nancy Pelosi to put $50 billion US taxpayer dollars in a Swiss account and send the account number and password to the Moon?

Posted by Bill White at December 19, 2006 06:47 PM

Bill - It is spiraling out into the absurd, is it not? Fifty billion in a Swiss bank? It would be cheaper and safer to hack into the account and steal the money than to go to the Moon for it.

Posted by Mark R. Whittington at December 19, 2006 08:54 PM

Do what the X-Prize team did... buy an insurance policy and pay a fractional amount up front, with the policy expiring in something generous like 20 years. First team to make it there and back again gets $5B (Jon's already covered how LM could almost do it for a quarter billion, that should be plenty).

Otoh, there is one good advantage to wasting half your money landing gold on the moon... it means the competitors have to lug it all back, forcing them to develop more robustly than for an information run. But, I still like the third-party insurance policy better.

Oh, and Pu-239? First, you gotta deal with the whiners. Then, you gotta deal with the fact that it degrades naturally. Finally, there's the small issue that it might not be worth as much if we can ever figure out how to use Th-232 well.

Posted by Big D at December 19, 2006 09:33 PM

Why exactly do we need to subsidise private efforts? If there are any economic resources on the moon, the private sector will chase them on their own.

Big D: Otoh, there is one good advantage to wasting half your money landing gold on the moon... it means the competitors have to lug it all back, forcing them to develop more robustly than for an information run.

The only thing you would be doing is stranding a whole lot of now useless gold on the moon. It would be much cheaper to simply buy both the Freeport and Newmont mining companies than to bring any of it back.

Perhaps the reason no one is walking on the moon today is because there is NOTHING THERE.

Posted by Adrasteia at December 19, 2006 11:58 PM

I think that's too much money, for too nebulous a goal, to be politically practicable. The real problem with all these prizes is that the government can't be counted on to not renege

If it's written into law then the government can't renege .. can they? I'm not thinking of money given via Nasa to a 'Son of X-Prize' but simply a law that says "do this and get the prize, tax free".

Probably not politically practical - but it has as it's virtue that it might work and if it doesn't then the taxpayer isn't out any money.

Posted by brian at December 20, 2006 12:01 AM

What would South Asian people say if the Japanese step up to the plate and the 13th person on the Moon unfurls a white flag with a giant red ball in the middle?

I guess they'd say something along the lines of "Those idiots spent $105B on a footprint, when that money could have gone towards buying useful infrastructure or paying down their fiscal deficit."

Posted by Adrasteia at December 20, 2006 12:03 AM

I respectfully propose the Kim Jong Il prize for the first lunar base. The contestants would have to be the first to build a lunar base AND an electromagnetic lunar rock launcher. The prize money is derived from threatening the earth with nuclear size impacts of lunar rock unless they give you huge amounts of aid money.

Posted by K at December 20, 2006 01:09 AM

> Fly to Bangalore, India and sit down with the owners of the leading South Asian media networks.

I don't need to fly to Bangalore to do a simple first-order valuation. The math is not all that complicated.

> Its about the whole package. Ever watch golf? Boring as all heck. NASCAR?

Golf, no. NASCAR, yes. I'm also familar with the process NASCAR uses for sponsorship valuations. What makes you think you can skip the process and substitute handwaving, Bill? What makes you think investors will skip the process?

> Now, a one off mission would be a total waste. Instead, you need to deploy an architecture that allows
> follow on missions at greatly reduced cost.

No, you need to *start* with a low-cost architecture. If you start out with a cost-be-damned attitude, you will finish the same way. The follow-on missions after Apollo 11 did not have greatly reduced costs. That's why Apollo died -- not because of some evil conspiracy by Richard Nixon or the Democrats, as Mark thinks.

> Such as a reuseable LSAM and an L point transfer station.

LSAM is hideously expensive. I don't see how you'd make it reusable, either, since its descent stage remains on the Moon. It would be cheaper to buy Russian LK landers or develop a new lander from scratch than to use LSAM. But any investor you approach will talk to NASA, which will tell them it's impossible to build a lander that's cheaper than LSAM. ESAS will poison the well, just like Apollo and Shuttle did.

> If you have an L point transfer station and a reuseable LSAM then one Proton and one Soyuz (or EELV
> equivalent) for crew and some fuel tankers is all you need to mount follow on missions.

How do you get that LSAM into orbit? It's too big to fit on a Proton, Bill. You can't just ignore math. And your investors will surely run this plan past NASA, which will tell them orbital refueling is impractical. That's the reason NASA's doing ESAS, right? Which Bill White supported, right? Do you think investors won't notice that you're telling them one thing and taxpayers another?

Posted by Edward Wright at December 20, 2006 01:22 AM

Drop a billion dollars worth of bullion on the lunar surface. Whoever can get up there, and bring it back, gets it.

One thing I don't see included in your scenario is the cost to the winner of designing, building, and flying a system to return the gold to Earth. As long as the gold is on the lunar surface, it's worthless ... even to the winning competitor. Sure, the lunar gravity well is a lot shallower than the terrestrial one, so it'll take less energy to bring the gold back than it took to put it there -- but you'll still have to fly the Moon Prospector vehicle(s) and their fuel up from Earth. Why bother?

My proposal? I'd convince Bill Gates write a personal check* and deliver it to the lunar surface with a Surveyor-class vehicle. And if I were Bill Gates, I'd have myself a good time by commissioning a spacecraft that I could fly to retrieve that check!

--
* No, I don't know how to make him do this!

Posted by Mike G in Corvallis at December 20, 2006 03:14 AM

Why exactly do we need to subsidise private efforts? If there are any economic resources on the moon, the private sector will chase them on their own.

Because given that we want to build a lunar base (and that is the current policy), it's a more cost-effective means of achieving the goal.

If it's written into law then the government can't renege .. can they

What the government writes into law, the government can unwrite into law. All they have to do is pass another law revoking the first one. That's why large prizes from governments aren't necessarily effective--they don't have sufficient credibility.

Posted by Rand Simberg at December 20, 2006 04:50 AM

Edward is correct about this:

I don't need to fly to Bangalore to do a simple first-order valuation. The math is not all that complicated.

Problem is the math does not work for ANY business model that has been proposed, thus far. But the math also gets far easier spending ~$60 million per Proton shot versus EELV pricing.

Now suppose a space tourist could raise 40% of a ticket price selling sponsorships -- the cost to that tourist is now 60% of what it was before.

Posted by Bill White at December 20, 2006 05:59 AM

If the whole point of this prize is to foster development of a permanent lunar settlement, then that's what should be rewarded, not just for landing, finding something, and returning with it. Whoever provides the funds should find someone who knows contract law (professor Kingsfield maybe, heh.) Some definition of "permanent settlement" is required. Maybe "self sustainable" and "birth rate" could be in there somewhere. Of course the first human birth on the moon is many decades away, so maybe more modest goals could be set. Contracts really can be depended on and trusted if they are written up well enough.

There was a cool pilot for a sci-fi show ages ago, I think it was called "Savannah" or something like that, about the first permanent lunar base. Part of the plot involved concern over the health of the first baby born on the moon. Of course we don't even know yet if humans can live permanently in a 1/6 g environment. Based on the data from microgravity, it doesn't seem too good. Maybe we would need to build centrifuges.

Posted by David Bush at December 20, 2006 06:42 AM

This would become an excellent reductio ad absurdum. If space commercialization is reduced to these kinds of gimmicks, it would become obvious there isn't any real 'there' there. And this would be pointed out quite viciously.

Have space pay its way honestly, providing real value, or don't do it.

Posted by Paul Dietz at December 20, 2006 06:54 AM

Suppose a large number of Americans were killed by Saudi nationals in the name of their religion. Seize the contents of the The Sacred Mosque and transport it to the moon. Tell the oil sheiks that they can have it back, but they'll have it collect it themselves. American companies - like Lockmart and the newer alt-space crowd - will be willing to help for a nominal fee, but they get to keep the hardware once the task is completed.

Posted by Anonomous on this one at December 20, 2006 06:56 AM

A perspective from the Ludwig von Mises Institute:

A recent article by Gregg Easterbrook in the December 8th, 2006 issue of Slate.com stated, "no one has any interest in settling Antarctica." The main discussion of the article is the foolishness of NASA's plan for a permanent moon base.
Easterbrook is right about the waste of funds for such an endeavor, but some of his logic misses the point. Any money spent by the government for the colonization of the moon, or space, is a misallocation of funds. Colonization of the moon needs to be done by private investors, and Locke's principle needs to be applied: the first to mix labor with material becomes the owner of such materials.

NASA can have no such claim, and a government moon base will not lead to the industrial development of the moon, Mars, or anywhere else in the solar system. What leads to development of such places is an entrepreneur who sees such areas are not being served in the market, and invests and develops such places to bring them to the market. This needs to be the first principle when looking at new areas of human development,

Okay, I agree with this. But are we so proud that wearing logo encrusted flightsuits to get the ball rolling is unacceptable?

Posted by Bill White at December 20, 2006 07:44 AM

PS -- I assert author at the von Mises link is wrong about ending the Antarctic treaties. But he is absolutely right that such treaties should not be extended to the Moon. Any international conference on lunar property rights can only cause trouble.

Stick with John Locke and natural law theories. You harvest lunar PGM? You own that lunar PGM, no Act of Congress being necessary.

Posted by Bill White at December 20, 2006 07:48 AM

...are we so proud that wearing logo encrusted flight suits to get the ball rolling is unacceptable?

Who's saying that it's "unacceptable," Bill?

We're just saying that it's unrealistic, and that this is unlikely to be a major revenue source, relative to providing actual services. But if you can find sponsors, more power to you.

Posted by Rand Simberg at December 20, 2006 07:48 AM

Rand, take a look at page 17 of Bennett's "The Anglosphere Challenge" where he suggests that seemingly frivolous sources of funds, tourism and entertainment are more likely to lead to private sector space endeavors than the industrial era business models.

In the coming Singularity Era, intangible wealth will be fastest growing sourec of wealth, and in many ways it already is. Brand value is only one example of intangible wealth that exists at the information-level.

I agree with you here, Rand:

I think that the information-level approach holds the most promise, just as the only real money to be made in space consists of satellites that generate revenue via photons...

Can we close a business case today? Perhaps not.

However as media, marketing and brand value enhancement spending grows and launch costs fall what other revenue stream will close a case first?

And I see tourism as being a subset of this approach. If Nike pays big bucks to place logos a tourist's flightsuit that is a complete win-win.

Posted by Bill White at December 20, 2006 08:29 AM

I agree with that. I disagree that sponsorships and ads will cover the costs in the early years.

Posted by Rand Simberg at December 20, 2006 08:45 AM

What the government writes into law, the government can unwrite into law. All they have to do is pass another law revoking the first one.

I can see that. However if the government revokes a prize that big their credit rating is going to go into the toilet - if they'll do that they can also revoke savings bonds and renege on debt.

Which is to say they could but it's in their better interests not to.

One thing I don't see included in your scenario is the cost to the winner of designing, building, and flying a system to return the gold to Earth. As long as the gold is on the lunar surface, it's worthless ... even to the winning competitor.

Why bring it back? If you own the gold and can prove it's valuation .. you've got a bank.

Open up shop and start loaning out money on your lunar gold.

Posted by brian at December 20, 2006 10:21 AM

However if the government revokes a prize that big their credit rating is going to go into the toilet - if they'll do that they can also revoke savings bonds and renege on debt.

I suspect that the credit markets would see them as different categories. The government's never reneged on debt, but it often cancels procurements, and takes other actions that have the effect of jerking people around. I thinks that the financial markets would view it as the latter, and unrelated to bonds.

Open up shop and start loaning out money on your lunar gold.

You could do that (somehow, this reminds me of Crytonomicon), but you'd have to discount it severely to account for the transportation costs if someone on earth demanded their share.

Posted by Rand Simberg at December 20, 2006 10:27 AM

> Problem is the math does not work for ANY business model that has been proposed, thus far.

No, Bill, the problem is that the math does not work for any business model *you've* proposed.

The reason it doesn't work is your inane, stubborn insistance that we must rely on EELV or Shuttle-derived instead of tackling the real problem -- the cost of space transportation.

When we develop cost-effective launch systems, there will be many business models that work. But you're against that. Why, why, WHY?

> But the math also gets far easier spending ~$60 million per Proton shot versus EELV pricing.

The math is pretty easy either way, Bill. The problem isn't that the math is hard. The problem is that the math doesn't give the answer you want. In other words, you are wrong. One way may be a bit "wronger" than the other, but you are wrong either way.

Proton and EELV are simply too expensive for private enterprise alone, without some sort of government support or incentive -- otherwise, private enterprise would be doing it. But you're against such incentives.

They might not be too expensive for the US government -- or for a government-industry partnership -- but you reject those options, also. Instead, you want NASA to build a new super-heavy lifter that's too expensive even for the government.

You reject EVERY model that works, then yammer that we must support models that don't work. WHY?

> are we so proud that wearing logo encrusted flightsuits to get the ball rolling is unacceptable?

It has nothing to do with pride,Bill. It has everything to do with math. There just isn't enough money in logos to pay for Protons or EELVs.

Posted by Edward Wright at December 20, 2006 11:05 AM

You could do that (somehow, this reminds me of Crytonomicon), but you'd have to discount it severely to account for the transportation costs if someone on earth demanded their share.

I wonder. Back when we were on the gold standard if you demanded gold for your certificates they would not haul it from Fort Knox to the deposit window. What did they do?

It might also be possible (assuming this is possible) to use the same dodge with a metal-bearing asteroid. Assay the sucker and you're in business.

I freely confess that I don't know the ins/outs of banking - there is no doubt something wrong with the assumptions that make this a bad idea.

But what? Does Mr. Dinkin still read this?

Posted by brian at December 20, 2006 11:22 AM

In reality, in order to have a bank you need a certain percentage of your assets held by the Federal Reserve Banks. So I'm afraid that at least in the US you cannot use moon gold...

Posted by David Summers at December 20, 2006 12:09 PM

And I agree with your agreement and your disagreement, here:

I agree with that. I disagree that sponsorships and ads will cover the costs in the early years.

Yup. NASCAR-style marketing will certainly not cover ALL the costs. I agree.

But IF we combine the foreign astronaut corps idea (where a citizen of Greece plants the Greek flag on the moon and calls Athens for a press conference) with marketing revenue and IF we can get the cost of getting a Greek astronaut to the Moon down to below $100 million dollars THEN I think we are near to closing a business case.

Posted by Bill White at December 20, 2006 12:22 PM

I suggested using the moon as an offshore banking center, among a number of lunar markets that Jon Goff didn't mention, here.

Rand, I'm wondering about one of your initial premises in this article - you suggest using a shuttle to launch it into low earth orbit. If one is going for a grazing lithobraking maneuver, then wouldn't a Big Dumb Booster suffice?

There's another way of looking at the problem. Suppose that Dennis Wingo is correct and there's Gold (and other platinum group metals) already in them thar hills. Then it is the same problem as if someone already sent 50000 kilograms of gold to the moon but didn't say exactly where on the moon it is or exactly how much is there. We'd just need to find it.

That would mean sending a few probes to the moon. Perhaps a small fleet of orbiters could be used to map the surface looking for mass concentrations. An army of small robots on a lander or three would then scour the surface in likely locations; a hundred robots each massing 5 kilograms can do quite a bit of exploration and assaying.

Those same robots could possibly do a bit of mining, but it is really the information that they gather that is valuable - and we know that getting bits back to earth is fairly inexpensive.

Suppose that you were one of the people who had purchased an acre from the Lunar Embassy people - how much would it be worth to you to have conrtol of a robot that is travelling around on your acre (and de facto validating your claim)?

Posted by Ed Minchau at December 20, 2006 12:40 PM

> IF we can get the cost of getting a Greek astronaut to the Moon down
> to below $100 million dollars THEN I think we are near to closing a business case.

"IF" is the operative word, Bill. Using Proton and Soyuz hardware, it would cost about $100 million just to send an astronaut *around* the Moon. Landing would cost hundreds of millions. Multiple hundreds.

To get costs down to the level you want will require the development of better, cheaper launch systems. A development you oppose because of the Loonie belief that it would "delay" the settlement of the Moon. So, you're stuck. Catch 22.

Posted by Edward Wright at December 20, 2006 01:07 PM

"Premise" isn't quite the right word. This whole thing is just a thought experiment, and I was just using an example representative of launch costs. I just thought that it was interesting that gold, as a payload, costs about as much as the launch does if one uses the Shuttle. And "Big Dumb Boosters" (whatever that means) don't exist, so there'd be a huge development cost associated with that. And if a BDB means that it's lower reliability, I don't think I'd trust a billion-dollar payload to it. I'd hate to dump a fifty tons of gold in the Atlantic...

Posted by Rand Simberg at December 20, 2006 01:28 PM

If it's the US government that's to put up the prize, it has other assets besides bullion to offer. Say, the deed to some federal land. Mineral or oil drilling rights. Things that don't require an up-front investment.

(Selling off federal land may seem short-sighted, but that's never stopped the politicians....)

Posted by Roger Strong at December 20, 2006 03:59 PM

Such a prize wouldn't lead to a private lunar base, the entity recovering the prize could merely design a recovery mission and forget about any long term stays, especially if the prize is in the form of raw materials. Anyway, I can think of a lot of better ways to blow 50 billion.

Posted by X at December 20, 2006 04:22 PM

I can think of a lot of better ways to blow 50 billion.

Hate to blow your point, whatever it was, but my proposal was not for fifty billion...

Posted by Rand Simberg at December 20, 2006 05:28 PM

OK, Big Dumb Boosters like the Sea Dragon don't exist yet, but there are other boosters that don't require the cash outlay of a space shuttle launch. And if Dennis Wingo is correct, then the equivalent of that prize you set up in your thought experiment is already there, we just have to find it.

Posted by Ed Minchau at December 20, 2006 08:35 PM

Ed Minchau:"I suggested using the moon as an offshore banking center"

I propose using the Cayman Islands.

Posted by Adrasteia at December 20, 2006 09:31 PM

Y'know, we're dealing with humans here. And after thinking about the lunar gold scenario, one thing seems likely to me: Whether you try to fly it there on Big Dumb Boosters or on the Shuttle, somebody's gonna try to sabotage the mission or steal the stuff outright.

I mean, why not? Let some nerd do all the work of putting the gold into a big package for you, and then grab it at the right moment. And gold is gold -- how would anyone trace it? Yeah, yeah ... I know: isotope ratios, trace metal abundances, all that stuff. So you add a few contaminants of your own and practice looking innocent.

(Yes, I know this is all absurd. So what?)

Posted by Mike G in Corvallis at December 21, 2006 01:23 AM

Adrasteia: I propose using the Cayman Islands.

And you're welcome to them. Go right ahead and set up your offshore bank in the Cayman Islands. Let us know how that works for you.

Posted by Ed Minchau at December 21, 2006 09:36 AM

Land much smaller amount, say half a billion, in the same spot each year. Doable ?
For added fun, land the money at different spots each year.
Now, lets talk again about fostering competition ...

Posted by kert at December 21, 2006 09:55 AM

I agree that a bearer bond backed by insurance companies operating out of Bermuda, London and one other market would be safer than US 30-year T-bonds for delivery to the Moon (weigh as much as Benjamins, but bear interest so they are worth $10k each in 30 years). I think $1 billion ought to be sufficient.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at December 22, 2006 11:03 AM

Rand,

Why did you pick gold of all things, it is nowhere near the most valuable of commodities.

Ten times higher value per gram is Rhodium, for comparison

Gold - $617-624/troy oz
Platinum - $1102-$1108/troy oz
Rhodium - $5800-$5900/troy oz

[BTW there is plenty of Platinum on the lunar surface already, we just do not know where it is.]

Diamonds are even more valuable today, but their base element is carbon which is abundant, that means the price could come dramatically down as nano/pico-technology improves.

Other gems have similar issues, I would need to research more to see if any gems are more robust in their prices. Sapphire for example is simply aluminum oxide, so could become cheap as technology advances.

Posted by Charles F. Radley at December 23, 2006 07:48 AM

I didn't "pick" gold. I just used it as an example. I mentioned rhodium as another possibility.

Posted by Rand Simberg at December 23, 2006 11:56 AM

Ah yes indeed.

Posted by Charles F. Radley at December 24, 2006 06:41 AM

Most of the problem appears to be uncertainty about future trends in the price of the commodity or instrument we plan to put on the Moon, and/or risk of default or revocation.

This problem is not unique to the Moon, Here on Earth, most of us face a similar problem predicting the future value and safety of our investments. Common approaches to this include diversification and to use dollar cost averaging.

A diversified cargo of items might include some Rhodium, some diamonds, and various other items. The greater the variety of items, the better. I would include a good variety of gemstones, sapphires, emeralds, rubies.

Rand mentions expensive drugs, but they tend to have a shelf life which would reduce dramatically in the lunar environment of radiation and temperature extremes.

Collectibles might be attractive, e.g. jewelry. Items of archeological value tend to be state owned, and not available on the open market. Some collectibles are irreplaceable; the risk of damage or loss due to a lunar landing would likely void any insurance policy.

Posted by Charles Radley at December 24, 2006 01:33 PM

Helium-3 is a possibility, but

The Moon is already an abundant source of He3. He3 already has a market value, even though He3 fusion is not yet demonstrated. It might be worth collecting He3 from the Moon today simply to sell into the existing terrestrial market.

Current market price for He3 is about $46,500 per troy ounce ($1500/gram, $1.5M/kg), more than 120 times the value of gold and over eight times the value of Rhodium.

Segue Essay on Helium-3:

http://lunarpedia.org/index.php?title=Helium3

Posted by Charles Radley at December 24, 2006 02:04 PM

The Moon is already an abundant source of He3.

In the same sense seawater is an abundant source of gold -- it's there, but there's no economical way to extract it. The artists' conceptions of the machines that will extract that ppb-level 3He from the lunar regolith just amaze me, and not in a good way.

Posted by Paul Dietz at December 27, 2006 11:12 AM

Paul

It is a straightforward process to extract He-3 from lunar regolith, much easier than getting gold from sea water.

Here is a reference with some details (1989, H. H. Schmitt et al):

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/pdf/fdm817.pdf

They describe three steps:
1) heat to a few hundred deg C to drive off the volatiles
2) fractional distillation to decant off the heavy volatiles
3) separate He3 from the He4 using standard superleak process

Two challenges are devising a method to process large quantities of regolith as the He3 is at a low concentration, and providing a high power thermally efficient heat source on the Moon.

So far I have not found any cost analyses for those. Hence you cannot claim it is uneconomic, as there is no data so say one way or the other.

Posted by Charles F. Radley at December 27, 2006 08:32 PM

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